After the arrests at last month's Critical Mass ride, I decided that I should take part in the next one, which took place on Friday. Everyone started gathering at the dinosaur in Oakland around 5, 5:15. I went in to work early that day so I could get home, get changed and get to Oakland before the ride started. It was an eclectic bunch, to be sure. Actually, since "eclectic" implies "diverse", it really wasn't. It was a bunch of new bohemian quasi-gutterpunks and bike messengers. Nothing but dreadlocks, wallet chains, and ironic t-shirts as far as the eye could see. Everyone saddled up, and we were off, heading down 5th Avenue. I'm guessing there were at least 100 people, and it was a pretty amazing sight to see.

As we went down through the SouthSide and downtown, we hit some red lights that turned midway through the pack, and it was interesting to watch some of the more experienced rides (messengers, mostly) pull to either side and block the oncoming traffic; hands raised, sheparding safe passage for the flock of stragglers as they went through the intersection.

That's not to say that all drivers were as accomodating. One of the main problems with the ride where people got arrested is that they weren't keeping to one lane on multi-lane roads, and this time was no exception. Of course, being the fuck-all hipsters that they were, the messengers took great glee in having cars honk at them, and would slow to a crawl just to piss off Joe SUV behind them. One woman became *very* agitated, and started screaming at all of us "white muthafuckas", which I didn't think was very fair since there were some black muthafuckas in the group as well.

It was certainly a fun ride, although I tend to cringe at anything that feels too granola-y and activist-y (which this certainly was), and I think I'll probably do the next one, too.